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Peter Gabriel |
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Page Summary and Menu Kiss of Live (various), 1980-2002 (includes various b-sides and soundtrack and compilation tracks) The Non Album, 1980-2002 (various b-sides and soundtrack and compilation tracks) Ashcombe Works, 1975-1986? (studio demos and instrumentals) HIT Instrumental (promo), promotional collection of instrumentals, from Up period - with bonus tracks #1 (EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED) (77-78) Before the Flood, PG1 Demos Cleveland '77, 15/3/77 (Music Hall, Cleveland OH) - with bonus tracks Slowburn, 9/4/77 (Roxy Club, LA) MUPPET 09, 29/4/77 (Apollo Theatre, Manchester UK) Rotterdam '77 (PGWeed01), 7/9/77 (Doelen Halle, Rotterdam Holland) #2 (THE SECOND TOUR) (78) On the Air, 15/9/78 (Grugahalle, Essen Germany) The Bottom Line, 4/10/78 (Bottom Line Club, NYC) - with bonus tracks A Whiter Shade of Pale (partial disc 2), 4/10/78 (NYC) and 15/3/77 (Cleveland) Both Bottom Lines From the Vault, 4/10/78 (Bottom Line Club, NYC) Stonybrook, 28/10/78 (University, Stoneybrook NY) #3 (THE TOUR OF CHINA 1984) (79-80) Games Without Words, 1979 (?) - studio demos Reading '79, 26/8/79 (Reading Festival) - with bonus tracks Shoot Into the Light (PRRP021), 5/3/80 (Apollo Theatre, Manchester UK) The Watcher, 7/3/80 (Sophia Gardens, Cardiff Wales) Greek Theater '80, 19/6/80 (Greek Theater, LA) PGW15, 15/9/80 (Stadthalle, Offenbach Germany) Bordeaux '80 (Meek's DC SHN12), 24/9/80 (Patinoire Meriadec, Bordeaux France) Chinatour, 29/9/80 (Palasport, Genoa Italy) Security (PLAYTIME 1988) (82-83) Shock the Dog, 16 and 18/7/82 (Showering Pavillion, Shepton Mallet) Shock the Rhythm (PRRP005), 2/11/82 (Stanley Theater, Utica NY) PGWeeds07, 5/11/82 (Forum, Montreal Canada) On the Air, 3/7/83 (Open Air Festival, Werchter Berlin) Master of Ferrara, 5/7/83 (Stadio Communale, Ferrara Italy) Seattle '83, 10/8/83 (Paramount Theater, Seattle Washington) Berkeley '83 (first night), 12/8/83 (Greek Theater, Berkeley CA) MUPPET 02, 12/9/83 (Apollo Theatre, Glasgow Scotland) Oslo '83, 29/9/83 (Ekeberghallen, Oslo, Norway) So (THIS WAY UP) (86-87) Pictures of People, 27/11/86 (Maple Leaf Gardens, Toronto) Goodbye USA, 16/12/86 (LA Forum) Glasgow '87, 23/6/87 (Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre) Philly '87 (second night), 21/7/87 (Spectrum, Philadelphia PA) Mercy Street, 5-9/10/87 (Lycavitos, Athens Greece) P.O.V., 5-9/10/87 (Lycavitos, Athens Greece) Human Rights Now! (88-91) No Police Repression, 14/10/88 (Estadio Mundialista, Mendoza Argentina) US (SECRET WORLD) (92-94) For Your Eyes and Ears, 24/4/93 (Le Zenith, Paris France) Union, 24/4/93 (Le Zenith, Paris France) Bethlehem '94, 10/8/94 (Stabler Arena, Lehigh University, Bethlehem PA) Woodstock '94, 14/8/94 (Saugherties, NY) WOMAD 2001, 29/7/01 (Marymoor Park, Redmond Washington) UP (GROWING UP) (02-03) Up Promo, 2002 (alternate early version of Up with extra track) Up Promotional Shows '02, 9-11/02 (TV and radio appearances, with bonus tracks) Paris 2002, 21/9/02 (Theatre De La Mutualite, Paris) Paris Radio 2002, 24/10/02 (Maison De La Radio, Studio 104, Paris) East Rutherford '02, 17/11/02 (Continental Airlines Arena, East Rutherford, NJ) Growing Up in Cleveland, 19/11/02 (Gund Arena, Cleveland OH) Growing Up: Dallas, 11/6/03 (Smirnoff Music Centre, Dallas TX) Encore Series , 21/6/03, 22/6/03, 2/7/03, 5/6/04 Encore Series 2007: 14/6/07 VIDEO (VHS): Peter Gabriel '78/Steve Hackett '02 | Genesis Various Bits 5 (South Bank Show) | VIDEO (DVD): Midnight Special ('73)/Live in Tokyo ('78)/Three Dates With Genesis ('78)/Peter Gabriel 1978 | Empire Theatre '83 | So in the Garden | TV Appearances (2 DVDs) | Bristol Recorder Volume 2 (January 1981) ? Type/Quality: Various, mainly studio/Very Good Comments: This is a bit of a mess of a CD, taken from a tape I was given with a lot of random Peter Gabriel slapped on it (as I didn't know how the heck to categorize it chronologically, I have chosen to place it at the front of my Pete section). The title is my own concoction, inspired by a misspelled version of one of Pete's songs on a bootleg track list I saw. This CD only has a "kiss" of live tracks, as most of it is studio stuff. Working for several hours with various sources of information--mainly the Genesis Discography by Scott McMahan--and with the help of a helpful trader, I was able to pin down most of the origins of these songs. The problems are the live tracks, which are very hard to pin down, as a definitive list of Peter Gabriel bootlegs has yet to be compiled. They are all fairly good quality, but have been dated very inaccurately. The first two songs are supposed to come from the "Astor Hotel, 1981." This is impossible, because not only was I unable to find any PG gigs at this "Astor Hotel," it turns out he never played a live show in 1981!! I was given a date of 18 April 1981 for this. Excluding a few gigs during his first tour in '77, Peter never played a single gig in the month of April until 1993--and by that time he was no longer playing these songs. Another trader may have found the correct origin of these songs, in the form of a compilation disc whose name and release date are detailed above--the gig dates and venues were also provided by this trader, though the Leicester gig is suspect as that date is not mentioned in Hewitt's gigography. However I trust him enough to put some faith in this information, and for now that is how it stands. The studio tracks I have identified in the list above as to how they originally appeared. "In the Sun" was not written by Pete, but by a man named Joseph Arthur. "Party Man" is said to have been written by Pete, The Worldbeaters, and Tori Amos. The "Digging in the Dirt" instrumental is not entirely instrumental--you can still hear some vocals from time to time, usually dealing with the chorus. "Kiss of Life" was labeled as being from "Felt Forum '82" on the tape I got. On an email detailing what would be on the tape, it was said to be from 7/17/87. Neither of these is even remotely correct, since Pete never played the Felt Forum by himself, and he was not playing "Kiss of Life" in '87. He did not play a gig on 17 July 1982. I would guess this is from '82, and it sounds like soundboard quality. I have not been able to find a radio or soundboard show with "Kiss of Life" on it. I'm at a loss for this one. It is possible that this track is actually an official release, from a live single of "I Don't Remember" (July 1983) which was backed with a live "Solsbury Hill" and "Kiss of Life." The first two songs were from Pete's album Plays Live, while "Kiss" is said to be an outtake from this album. Even if this is so, it still does not exactly pin down the date, as according to a Larry Fast web page the live album was compiled from four different gigs (mostly in Illinois) from 3-7 December 1982. The jury is still out on this one... "Family Snapshot" is probably from the date mentioned above--it was a radio show, and the track appears to be radio quality (though there is a loud buzz in it near the beginning). The gig was actually at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey (which is in the Meadowlands). My main reason for liking this as the gig is that the song was labeled as being Meadowlands '86 on the tape. Of course, in an email I was sent I was told it was going to be 9/2/86, which is wrong, as Pete did not play any gigs on either September 2 or 9 February of that year. However if Meadowlands is correct, it is the radio show of 15 June, which seems a fairly well-known bootleg. "Quiet Steam" is an interesting version of the song, in a totally different tone than the version on the album. Pete would use an adapted version of this quiet style to intro the song on tour. "Games Without Frontiers (Massive/DB mix)" was labeled on my tape as "War Without Tears," but I think the title I've given it is correct. It doesn't sound like a remix of the song--more as though Pete had started over again from scratch. It's a quieter, much more serious version of the song--in fact, Pete seems to have missed the whole point of the humor and goofiness of the original (and much better) studio version. The Deep Forest song is very dance/techno in style--I think this is just a Deep Forest song with Pete guesting on vocals, I don't think he helped on the writing in any way. Unfortunately this song is very incomplete--the tape ran out. My original version of this CD also had an incomplete version of the b-side "Bashi-Bazouk" and a full version of "Don't Break This Rhythm," but as I now have better versions of both on another disc (see next entry), I have removed them from this one. The last song has only a fleeting relationship with Peter Gabriel. He's not featured on this performance at all, since it was played by the Tony Levin Band. Their personnel: Tony, Larry Fast, Jesse Gress, and Jerry Marotta (who does the vocals). So quite a few members of Pete's solo bands of past years. Now I checked Tony's website, and this song I have matches exactly a sample of a track from his new live album, called Double Espresso. On the site, they claim that "most" of the recording for that album comes from a gig at Bearsville Theater in Woodstock, New York--according to their gig list, this would make the date 27 April 2002. However, I was told this song was from Cleveland, which would put it at 3 April in the Beachland Ballroom. It's one or the other, most likely the New York venue. Confusion on the live dates aside, this is an interesting collection with some valuable b-sides and rarities. And the quality is quite good. |
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01 Shosholoza (Biko 12", August 1980)
(5:20) Type/Quality: Various, studio/Very Good Comments: This is a nice collection of non-album tracks--mostly b-sides and soundtrack contributions from Pete, arranged nicely in chronological order (with a silly title provided by me). Those wondering whether Pete was doing anything in the long pause between Us and Up will find a partial answer here. "Shosholoza" and "Walk Through the Fire" I already have on Genesis Rarities Volume VI ("Time Lapse") on my compilations page. I'm not sure which versions are superior, though if I had to guess I would probably pick these. "Shosholoza" is really quite crackly, but the one from the compilation wasn't that good either. It's nice to have "Across the River" in studio form, this one taken from the WOMAD benefit album; its studio form is quite a bit different from later live versions. "Soft Dog" is a really creative and neat little song, mainly instrumental--which is also unfortunately somewhat marred by a lot of crackles. "Out Out" is an all-around strange song for Pete--it seems a strange movie for him to do a song for, and the song is not characteristic. It is also seven minutes long, which seems quite lengthy for a soundtrack contribution. It is also not all that good, but worth a listen if only for its uniqueness. "Don't Break This Rhythm" is a catchy if fairly simple number. "Curtains" is pretty neat. "Ga-Ga" sounds very similar to the early version of it I have on Games Without Words, below--this version just sounds more polished. I think I like this instrumental version better than "I Go Swimming." "Bashi-Bazouk" is a pretty cool number, slightly similar to his work on Passion. "Lovetown" is a pretty song which was more than a little eclipsed by Bruce's more popular (and admittedly much better) contribution to the Philadelphia soundtrack, "Streets of Philadelphia"--but Pete's song is also more than worth a listen. "Taboo" is a rather Arabian-sounding piece which features the vocal talents of Nusrat Fateh Ali Kahn, who was also featured on Up's "Signal to Noise." It happens to be one of two tracks (along with "That'll Do" later on) on this disc which have their ends clipped. I don't think more than a couple of seconds are lost, but it is still unfortunate and I'm not sure why it happened. "Summertime" is an utterly beautiful Gershwin song performed in beautiful fashion by Pete; "Suzanne" is also given a nice, soulful treatment. "That'll Do," one of Pete's more embarrassing forays into the movie world, is still hard to ignore when sung with Pete's undeniable believability. Pete has the rare talent of always being able to make you take him seriously when he sings. "Animal Nation" I had heard before only in live form, and was disappointed to find that the soundtrack version was lacking some of the real anthemic, blood-pumping vitality of live performances of the song. Still, it's a pretty good tune (another seven minute soundtrack song!), and Pete puts some real good attitude into his vocals. Nice to have all these tracks put together. For your information, here are writing credits for all of the songs that were not written entirely by Pete: 1 Traditional (arranged by Egnos, Gray and Gabriel); 2 Gabriel, Shankar, Rhodes, Copeland; 11 Gabriel, Nusrat Fateh Ali Kahn; 12 George and Ira Gershwin, DuBose and Dorothy Heyward; 13 Leonard Cohen; 14 Randy Newman. |
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Ashcombe Works '75-'86? 01 On the Air (instrumental)(5:03) Type/Quality: Studio/Very Good-Good Comments: This is a collection of various studio outtakes, unreleased songs, instrumental versions of album songs, and demos. Quite a few of these songs will be found repeated on my Games Without Words bootleg, farther below. I also have another version of "Strawberry Fields" elsewhere (in my Compilations/Misc. section), which probably is in better condition than this one. However there are a few things here that I don't have anywhere else: for instance, the first two tracks, the second of which actually has vocals. The "Wallflower" instrumental is interesting, because I didn't even recognize it--partly because I almost never listen to the album version of that song and Peter doesn't seem to have ever played it live, but also because this version is very bouncy and has a driving rhythm in the background which gives it a different tone. Most of the songs here are instrumentals, but some do have some vocals, most of them rather preliminary. "I Go Swimming" (track 5) has more words in it than I remember hearing Peter sing in the live versions he sometimes performed. "That Voice Again" and "Mercy Street" are very basic versions with just Peter's voice and a piano, and the words are not finished. I assume that these come from around 1986, when Pete was developing the music that would end up on So. "Strawberry Fields" comes from a very weird movie soundtrack from '75--it's probably the oldest recording on here. "Intruder" is identical to my version on Games Without Words, with Peter singing only a few lines and mumbling through the rest. "Start" is the version without the saxophone. "I Don't Remember" is instrumental except for the chorus vocals. "No Self Control" is instrumental, and the arrangement sounds different than the version on the album. "And Through the Wire" can't really be called an instrumental because Peter does sing some words in it, but they are not the final words. An interesting collection of songs. |
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HIT Instrumental (promo) 1 Burn You Up, Burn You Down (5:24) Type/Quality: Studio/Excellent Comments: This one's a little weird; apparently auctioned on e-Bay, this is called an "official release" by Simon. It appears to be a promotional CD sent out to radio stations or media people of some kind for use as background music. These are simply instrumental versions of Gabriel songs. For the version of "Burn You Up" with words, see my promotional version of Up, below. Track 6 is called "Wild" on Simon's version, so I have replicated his title; I guess this is an idea that didn't end up on Up. My version is different than most others because it has two bonus tracks on the end which were taken from Melanie Gabriel's tour film, as mentioned above (the disc also seems to have two second pauses between all the tracks, but since they are self-standing studio numbers with no segues, this is not a problem). The first (meaning track 7) is a very small song idea with some vocals from Peter, and the second is a short instrumental piece; I am told by the trader I got this from that both tracks are part of the non-album track "Baby Man" which Peter actually played on tour in 2004. This is some very interesting and excellent quality stuff, but its legality is highly questionable. Of course, I don't see anything against trading it with people since no money changes hands, but apparently Peter is not happy at this one having seen the light of day in collector circles. |
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Before the Flood 1 Howling At the Moon (3:01) Type/Quality: Studio/Very Good Comments: This is an interesting artifact, a small collection of studio demos from the recording of Peter's first solo album. Four of the tracks seem to be ideas which were never developed into final songs, and the songs here which did end up on the album are in their early stages, especially "Get the Guns," which is clearly the main idea for "Dolce Vita." I think I read in the liner notes to a CD of similar tracks by Nick Drake that an artist's first album is the one that he works hardest on and has the most ideas for. In a sense you're trying to invent yourself and your unique sound from scratch. I find it interesting to listen to this stuff and think about what Peter Gabriel might have been if he had made some different decisions about where to go with these ideas. Maybe it's just that most of them are piano with vocals, but I thought Peter had a classic R&B thing going here, much different than the sound he eventually found for himself. This is studio stuff and the quality is very nice. There were two or three digital "jitters" or hangs on my disc, but that was it. |
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Cleveland '77 15/3/77 01 Here Comes the Flood (2:21) Type/Quality: Radio/Very Good Comments: At the Music Hall in Cleveland, most of this is a radio show. The quality is nice, just a bit hissy. Most versions of this include three more songs from the gig: "Slowburn," "Down the Dolce Vita," and "Back in NYC." Mine is unfortunately missing them. This comes very early in Pete's first solo tour, and has some interesting early versions of songs that would end up on his second album, as well as some nice covers of classic soul/rock and roll songs. "On the Air" sounded better after he was done writing it, but this version is OK. "Song Without Words" is kind of a mistake, in my opinion. Admittedly Pete had a lot of guts to go on stage with a song that he wasn't even done writing yet, and using a weird voice-distorting device to cover his mumbling of non-existent lyrics. However, no matter how much guts he had to do it, it still just sounds like an unfinished song. "Ain't That Peculiar" is a great cover, and "All Day..." also has lots of energy--it may have been from these performances of Pete's that Genesis decided to include oldies in their own "Turn It on Again" medley a few years later. Pete was really forced to play them, as he only had one solo album of 9 tracks to work with at the time of this concert (he clearly did not want to delve too deeply into his Genesis material, only playing the odd encore from Lamb). "Why Don't We" sounds like an early version of the quiet part of "Family Snapshot." The song is one of several unfinished compositions Pete would play on this tour, and though it is probably one of the better ones, it apparently came in for a lot of criticism and Pete decided not to do anything with it (except use bits of it for "Family Snapshot," that is). Hence it does not appear on any studio recordings. The live show is really nice--the audience is very energetic and at a good level in the mix. During "Waiting for the Big One" you hear someone saying something about how much he loved Pete when he was in Genesis--at the beginning of this song during the second tour, Pete would walk through the audience while shaking everyone's hand. It makes sense that he would do that here as well, which explains why you can hear the fan--he probably was able to talk almost directly into Pete's microphone. Now on to the bonus tracks: the first two songs most likely come from the single for "D.I.Y." The first is Pete's re-working of a classic children's song written by Coots/Winters. It's just Pete at a piano, with perhaps some kind of effect on his voice. You can hear his footsteps at the beginning and end of the song. It's an eerie, tragic type of piece, very different to the bounciness of the original. "D.I.Y." is much like the album version, but with slightly different vocals--a good version, I might possibly like it better than the album one. "Hush..." is a Paula Cole song on which Pete shared vocal duties. It's a pretty, haunting little song with a sort of Tori Amos feel to it. The last song was originally composed by Pete, some time early in his career, but never released by him--this version is recorded by Tony Levin's solo band and comes from one of their albums. Three members of the band (Jesse Gress, Jerry Marotta, and Tony himself) share vocals. Larry Fast, also a member of the band, was supposedly present with Tony and Jerry when the original version was developed. A cursory listen will probably make most people realize why Peter did not bother to record it; it's an OK tune, but it doesn't really go anywhere. (Actually, check out my later show Shock the Dog from the WOMAD event of '82, where Pete's special band plays the original "Dog One"--it sounds much better than this version.)
Slowburn 9/4/77 01 Here Comes the Flood/On the Air (6:21) Type/Quality: Radio/Good-Very Good Comments: At the Roxy Club in LA, this first of two gigs at that venue went out on radio and became a bootleg. This version was released by Great Dane Records and, unlike most of the other shows I have, I was actually sent a print-out of the artwork. It demonstrates the very reason why I usually don't bother with artwork: namely, that the tracking listed on the back is not accurate. It makes sense to list "Here Comes the Flood" and "On the Air" as the first two tracks, because they are the first two numbers--but that's not the way it is on the disc (as you can see from my correct track list above). It's really only at the beginning that the listing is inaccurate though. Regardless, this is not a bad show, and though not as good as a radio show could be in quality (at the beginning, being unaware of its source, I mistook the recording for an above average audience show), it still is quite a nice example of an early Pete show. There are some pops, possibly related to vinyl ancestry. In Pete's intro before the "Song Without Words," he mentions that the show is going out on radio (in the process turning this into a story about a paralell universe and a strange little man who is going to sing with him). The ending of "Solsbury Hill," though it begins with some very nice guitar work, sounds clipped at the end. There is a strange story before "Slowburn" about a pair of prisms engaging in a primitive form of sex (sex is a theme with Pete's stories, isn't it?). Pete tells similarly strange stories for "Dolce Vita" and, unexpectedly, the cover of "Ain't That Peculiar." Pete provides a band introduction after "Modern Love;" I won't bore you with the whole line-up (it's written, slightly incorrectly as usual, on the artwork), but one of the guitarists is introduced as "Dusty Roads" (or Rhodes?). This is, in fact, the great Robert Fripp: you can hear his characteristic wail cutting through the opening version of "Here Comes the Flood," basically ruining the quiet beauty of the song--on other numbers, his particular talents are more appropriately used. "Dolce Vita" surprised me because it had a nice drum solo in it. Unfortunately, the ending of that song has a lot of scratches on it, but as soon as the track switches over to "Back in NYC," the scratches go away. |
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MUPPET 09 29/4/77 1-01 Here Comes the Flood (3:00) 2-1 Slowburn (7:49) Type/Quality: Audience/Good Comments: At the Apollo Theatre in Manchester. This recording rather ironically begins with a fellow fan asking the taper, "What do you do with it once you've got it taped?" As I write this, some thirty years later, I have become one little piece of the answer to that question. The people of MUPPET have carefully and fairly seamlessly matrixed two different audience recordings to create this full show, a real scorcher from Peter's first solo tour. I was really impressed by the performance here: Peter's first tour is not generally my favorite one, and I haven't always been wowed by his performances, but this one was really powerful. They really meant this one. The first song is a bit wavery but after that I didn't notice any major speed problems. There are no song intros until after "Waiting for the Big One." Before "Slowburn" Pete tells a weird story rather in the Genesis vein, about eyeballs mating. There are bass drum pedal problems before "Dolce Vita" and the band play a short improv. Then we are treated to a gutsy "Back in NYC," one of Peter's few ventures back into Genesis material. |
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01 Here Comes the Flood (2:13) Type/Quality: Audience/Good Comments: In Rotterdam--most seem to state the venue as "de Doelen," but Hewitt's guide has it at Ahoy Sportpaleis. This recording was originally PGWeed01, the first release from a remastering group who specialize in Pete releases. This is an appropriate show to be their first release, as it comes from his first solo tour. In fact this particular version is actually a remaster of the PGWeed release, from the Coaster Factory--I did the artwork. I had often wondered just how Pete would fill up shows for his first tour, since his first album was somewhat short on material--with this bootleg, my questions are answered. He performs all of the songs from his first album (one of them twice!), plus a few oldies covers and a couple of early versions of songs that would end up on his (IMO inferior) second album. And of course for an encore one of the only leftovers from his time with that other band, "Back in NYC." This is a good audience recording with no cuts, no noise, and no errors. The sound is not perfect, and the audience does get a bit in the way, but this is to be expected--it's really about all one can hope for. Probably one of the better examples of early Peter Gabriel solo work. |
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15/9/78 01 On the Air (4:44) Type/Quality: TV/Very Good-Good Comments: At the Grugahalle in Essen, Germany, this is the soundtrack of a TV program, "Rockpalast". I have this on VHS and DVD from a TV broadcast which must have been on a French TV station. Curiously, while the video is almost totally missing "Lamb" due to some kind of interference, this audio version has the whole song with no problems. Another interesting fact is that two of the boot lists I looked at had this disc ending at "Solsbury Hill," while mine has the last two numbers. I have already described this show on my video page, so this comments section will be a bit shorter than usual. There's not much to describe anyway--Pete does some talking to the audience in a mix of English and German, and also introduces the band, but he doesn't say much about the songs or tell any stories. The songs are performed rather well, though Pete has various lyric problems, especially in "Modern Love" and "Solsbury Hill." Also "I Don't Remember" is a prototype version of that song with alternate lyrics to the studio version. The sound is fairly good, just a bit rough, and there are some definite crackles during Pete's band intros. Interestingly, for "The Lamb," the keyboardist (who may be Tim Capello but is probably Larry Fast) does not attempt the more complicated bit of the piano intro, instead opting to kind of gloss over it; I guess Tony Banks is good for something after all :). As a final note, though the title I have given this bootleg is not one that I've seen on other sites, it is the one that my computer's CD player came up with after consulting the "CD database." It also called the disc a "live import." I don't know how above-board this is... |
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4/10/78 01 Here Comes the Flood/Intro (2:38) Type/Quality: Radio/Very Good Comments: At The Bottom Line club in New York City, most of the first half of this disc (tracks 2-7) comes from a KBFH broadcast on 93.3 WMMR FM in Philadelphia (my childhood radio station of choice--because my dad listened to it). A very incomplete but quite good portion of a show from Pete's second tour (for more complete and better quality versions of both gigs at the Bottom Line, see two entries down). The first track sounds a bit rough, though it's probably radio quality. I am not sure of its source, though I am pretty confident that whatever it comes from, it is not from the Bottom Line. The intro and the station ID for the radio show don't come until AFTER that song. This first one is the one played without the rest of the band, though you can hear a guitar on it. The original tape this came from did not have "White Shadow" in the middle of the material--that song was on a different tape altogether. But as most boots of this gig have "White Shadow" on them, and as my version was also dated at the Bottom Line, I stuck it in the middle. These are good versions of these songs, and a very rousing version of "Lamb." The line-up for this gig was the usual one for this tour: Larry Fast, Jerry Marotta, Timmy Capello, Sid McGinnis, and Tony Levin. Robert Fripp makes a guest appearance at this gig on guitar--listen for him on "Here Comes the Flood." I usually say that I prefer the Pete-only version of "Flood," but I have to say that his live band does a pretty good job with the full-blown version. FYI, I eventually received a small portion of the 4/10/78 radio show on another show (see 24/9/80, Bordeaux, below), which helped confirm the date on these. That version is actually better quality than this stuff. Also see next two entries for more Bottom Line Club stuff. As for the bonus cuts, they are all b-sides to various Peter Gabriel singles. The easiest solution for their origin is to say they all come from the long, limited edition "I Don't Remember" single. However since they've appeared on other singles, I felt it best to mention all possibilities. This single version of "I Don't Remember" is a very different take on the song than the version on the album--Pete's vocals are less emotional and the whole song has a bit less aggression to it. It's very unlikely that the extended "Biko," which has different singing on the beginning and end and which has different and longer ending vocals from Pete, came from the "Sledgehammer" single. The last two songs do not appear to be from the same source as the first two b-sides--I had to up their volume more, and they are hissy. "Jetzt Kommt die Flut," which is Pete's reworking of "Here Comes the Flood" with German lyrics, is still very low in volume and hard to hear. It's possible that one or all of the last few songs came from an LP. "Jetzt Kommt die Flut" also seems to have appeared as a b-side to an entirely German single (the a-side, "Spiel Ohne Grenzen," is "Games Without Frontiers"), though because of where I got this music from I doubt that this version was taken from that single. Curiously, it's the live parts of this recording that sound the best--the studio stuff is a bit dull, though still quite good. |
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4/10/78, 15/3/77 4/10/78 (Bottom Line): Type/Quality: Radio/Very Good Comments: This is a very odd disc that I received from a casual trader who was a bit unclear in representing the date and venue--when I listened to it and researched it I realized why. Through the miracle of the internet and thanks to Simon Funnell, I think I have correctly identified this disc as the bonus tracks from the 2-disc Highland show with the title above (named for the fact that in the full show Peter covers that song). The actual disc two of the Highland show as tracked on The Movement includes the last three songs from 31/8/78 in Oslo on the beginning, and a version of "Song Without Words" from Cleveland (it should come right after "Ain't That Peculiar;" this disc even has the intro for the song here, but not the song itself). I don't know how the show came to be chopped down to this state. It has also had jarring two-second pauses added between the tracks (one of my major pet peeves), but since it is from two different venues and not really in order, the pauses don't really interrupt the flow that much. Both the recordings represented here are radio shows and both in very nice quality, the Bottom Line material being noticeably better. I have both of these shows in more complete forms listed elsewhere on this page (see next entry for the Bottom Line). Peter's live band in '78 was pretty smoking and these gigs featured special guest Robert Fripp on guitar! (Though in fact after some study I don't think that Fripp was actually on stage for any of the songs chosen here from the Bottom Line gig, except perhaps "The Lamb.") "Lamb Lies Down on Broadway" is a blistering, impossibly fast version that sounds (dare I say it??) more exciting than it has ever sounded when played by Genesis. In short, though this is a nice set of songs to listen to, there are much better and more complete recordings to be had from both gigs represented here. |
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4/10/78 Early Show 2-01 Modern Love (7:31) 3-01 Band Introductions/White Shadow (6:30) Type/Quality: Soundboard/Very Good-Excellent Comments: At The Bottom Line club in New York City. This is one of those shows that enters into a legal gray area. Both of Peter's Bottom Line gigs are available to stream off of Wolfgang's Vault. This show has been created by capturing the stream. If the Bottom Line recordings are ever offered for sale as high quality downloads (which is not the case at the time of this writing), this will not be a tradeable item. Now that I've gotten that out of the way! The unearthing of these shows was quite exciting to fans of Peter, since a very few radio-sourced tracks from one of the Bottom Line gigs (see above two entries) had been the only stuff available until Wolfgang came along. Now we have both gigs in their entirety, which have been cobbled onto three discs for this version. It's very interesting to have the radio show in mind when listening to this full recording. First of all, comparing the song intros and music available shows that the radio tracks seem to mostly come from the early show, not the late one (though Peter tells the audiences at both gigs that they are going out on King Biscuit). I had always gotten the idea from the radio tracks that we were listening to a tight, well-rehearsed band doing a fantastic gig. The reality that emerges from the complete recording tells a different story. The troubles in the early show start early (ha-ha). The band has repeated feedback problems, and Peter's microphone cuts out for a short while near the beginning of "On the Air" (suggesting that the KBFH version is the late show performance). This happens again in "White Shadow." The mixing of the sound seems off at the end of the song, because the guitar comes in very loud. During the opening of "Big One," we can hear Peter bumping his microphone around. Peter apologizes to the audience early on and says that as the show continues they will get "better quality." By the second half of the show most of the kinks have been worked out; by the encores, when Robert Fripp takes the stage, the band are sounding pretty great; and at the conclusion of the first show we are left with an angry, pounding "Lamb" which I've mentioned with enthusiasm in my other entries about this show. Unfortunately at the beginning of the second show we get the sense that we might be in for another error-laden performance, as Peter makes several nasty screw-ups in "Teddy Bear" (a frustrated Peter comments to the audience: "This is terrible!"). However with that out of the way and with the rest of the band taking the stage, the set proceeds much more smoothly. The only problem with the second gig is that the tape ran out before the show ended--we only get the first verse of "Lamb" before it fades away. It was interesting for me to listen to these gigs, even ignoring the comparison to the radio show, because I just don't have that many performances from his second tour. Peter's second album is probably my least favorite. Nevertheless it was fun to hear live versions of "One-Way World," "Flotsam and Jetsam," and "Home Sweet Home." "Me and My Teddy Bear" is also a rare one and a very curious choice for a set-opener. Apparently Peter actually brings his "Teddy" with him on stage and does the song with just the two of them. Then he has to go search for the rest of the band. Peter explains the song "One-Way World," though not in a way that really helps make any sense out of it. "Waiting For the Big One" always sounds fantastic live--I think a lot of that had to do with keyboardist/saxophonist Timmy Capello. "I Don't Remember" is a prototype version for which Peter hasn't really worked out any of the lyrics except the chorus. Peter was forced to curtail his sets a bit because he was playing two gigs in one day, but he switches up a few songs between the two shows and there is still a lot of music here. There is a nice intimate club atmosphere, with Peter having a bit of banter with the louder fans from time to time. It's cool to be able to listen to both gigs back-to-back like this. Even if you hear a screw-up in a song, you can be fairly certain that the second performance of it on disc two or three will sound better. A nice compilation. |
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28/10/78 01 On the Air (4:44) Type/Quality: Audience/Very Good-Good Comments: This is a pretty great show, but one for which the venue and date information is in question. Alan Hewitt's gig guide puts the Stonybrook show on 21 October; most bootlegs put it at the 24th. However, the trader I got it from dated it at the 28th. I trust him, plus I consulted a website called "Live to be Loved" which is supposed to have a very trustworthy gig guide, and they also put 28 October. However, that site put the venue as "Hofstra University" in New York, whereas all other sources put it at the State University of New York (SUNY). It's just one of those things. Indeed, I even suspect the type of recording this is--everyone seems to label it as audience, but I'd be willing to believe it's a soundboard, because to my ears that's what it sounds like. This is good quality stuff, with no cuts and lots of nice in between stuff, as well as some great performances. Pete has some good stories for a lot of his songs--before "Humdrum," he compares his discovery of himself as a musician to being gay, speaking of hanging out in musician bars and having to tell his parents that he is a musician. After "Humdrum" Pete explains to the audience that they are about to play a very unfinished song with lots of improvisations--this will give the audience the opportunity to watch them "fuck up." Pete seems to have been fond of playing very new and unfinished songs while on tour (a habit which in my opinion was not a good idea); this one is often labeled as being an early form of "Not One of Us"--on my second listen, I could actually hear the beginnings of that song in here, but there's not much resemblance between this product and the final version. Before "D.I.Y." Pete talks about all the reworking that has been done to the stereo recording, and the various different versions of the song that have been released, and how the song has done nothing on the charts. He then invites the audience to listen to "our contribution to the obscure list of missed singles." Meanwhile a lone fan screams to Pete that he, at least, thinks the song is OK. During the beginning of "Waiting for the Big One," the crowd gets louder because Pete is walking through the audience (as was his wont at the start of this number), and their noise is augmented by Pete's microphone. Before "Flotsam and Jetsam," Pete informs the audience ("those of you that have been asking") that Robert Fripp is alive and well and off producing somebody else--Fripp produced Pete's second album and played a few previous gigs with him. Although in earlier shows of this tour, "I Don't Remember" was still in its early stages, the version he plays at this gig sounds very close to the album cut. Pete makes it very clear that "Solsbury Hill" is the number where he wants everyone to clap and sing along; still, he is forced to chide the crowd later on for not being able to sing the two words--"back home"--that he wants them to. I believe this recording may be missing the encore number (which seems to have most often been "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway," sometimes accompanied by "Here Comes the Flood"), but other than that it's all here and it sounds great. |
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1979 (?) 01 I Go Swimming (4:49) Type/Quality: Studio/Very Good Comments: (FYI, this entire bootleg and more seem to be contained within the bootleg called Ashcombe Works, further above. If you compare track times for the corresponding songs they are nearly all identical or very close to.) Though I've labeled this at the top of this page as coming from Pete's tour for his third album, this is in fact some mostly instrumental bits from the studio, recorded while he was still developing the album. There are several versions of this boot, and while mine kind of matches some versions, its tracks do not seem to be in the same order. "I Go Swimming" is an instrumental version of a song that would end up as a b-side (with lyrics). It was also released as an instrumental version called "Ga-Ga," which sounded very much like this. "Walk Through the Fire" is the instrumental beginnings of the song that would end up on the soundtrack for Against All Odds (along with several other Genesis-related songs...). "Intruder" is also in its early stages and though Pete has come up with the first line, he doesn't seem to have anything else, and mumbles some nonsense to fill in some parts. "Bully For You" is a non-album track, and most boots of this material identify it as a "soundscape" or "seascape," but it is also sometimes given the name I assigned it. I've been told by a trader that it is also known as "Ken and the Wheel" and that it is an instrumental form of "We Don't Need No Aggravation" (again, see Ashcombe Works, above, for the version with words). Really "Bully For You" and "We Don't Need No..." are alternate titles for the same song. Simon has a boot with a song called "We Don't Need No I Growthation" on it, another alternate title (possibly just a typo). I have seen "Ken and the Wheel" on a Gabriel web site, and Scott McMahan's discography mentions that "Bully For You" was a song co-written by Tom Robinson and was released on a single in 1979 (presumably by Robinson, since Scott has no record of it in his Gabriel singles section). I have a few live performances of "Bully For You" from Peter during his 1980 tour. "I Don't Remember" has some of the chorus sung in it, but otherwise is instrumental. "Games Without Frontiers" is entirely instrumental and has some interesting messing around at the end. I was surprised to find this early, wordless version of "We Do What We're Told" in with this material, since the song would not be fully developed and used until Pete's 1986 So album. However those familiar with Pete's live material will know that he was performing this song in an almost final form long before '86 (see, for instance, this nearby entry). "Start" is played without the sax solo in it. "And Through the Wire" features Pete repeating the phrase "I know you" for a while. I like having these kind of outtakes, as it gives you a rare peek into how songs develop in the studio. The quality is quite good. |
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Reading '79 26/8/79 01 DJ Introduction (1:05) Type/Quality: Radio/Very Good Comments: At the Reading Festival of '79, the majority of this recording is a radio broadcast of Peter's return to that venue after last having performed there with Genesis in 1973 (at the very end of the Foxtrot tour). According to Simon, Peter stopped this material from being played over the radio because he was not satisfied with the performance, but it was eventually played--I believe this version comes from a broadcast of 28 October 2002--not long after the release of Pete's Up (the specific date I got from Simon's page, but the year is easy to prove because in the introduction the DJ mentions the number of years separating 1979 from the year of the broadcast and also mentions the recent release of Up--she talks over the beginning beats of "Biko," unfortunately). Frankly, I must agree with Pete's analysis--this is not a very good performance. It is a special and unique one and it is in good quality, which will make it valuable to collectors--but ironically enough, the very qualities that make it so valuable are what make it such a sloppy example of music-making. The band had not played a gig since a one-off performance over two months before, and before that their last show was in December of the previous year. They are clearly out of practice. To add to the difficulties, the band was playing material that was very, very new and unfinished; they probably had very little time to figure out how to play it. What I'm talking about are the two songs here which would end up on Pete's third album but had yet to be totally written and probably yet to be recorded in part or in whole in a studio (making it chronologically incorrect for me to place this entry after the previous one, but this is how I chose to organize them): "Biko" and "No Self Control," the latter which Peter introduces as "I Don't Know How to Stop." "Biko" has only one verse of what would be the final lyrics, the rest of the song filled up mainly by gibberish or cries of "Biko!" The lyrics for "No Self Control" are also very roughed-out, with Pete seemingly improvising lines as he goes along (most ending in the refrain of "I Don't Know How to Stop"). This particular version of the show has nothing in it aside from the music and the DJ's opening chatter (in which she talks a bit about Pete's musical history and his place in progressive rock as well as mainstream rock)--all of the songs crossfade into each other and there is very little in the way of intros other than Pete saying the name of the song. I looked at other, audience versions of this show and have seen that additional songs seem to have been played at the actual gig: "Animal Magic," (probably my least favorite Peter Gabriel song of all time, so I don't really miss it) "I Don't Remember," "Here Comes the Flood" and "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway." The more recent broadcast that this comes from does not seem to have included these songs at all--perhaps because they were particularly bad versions, or perhaps only to fit within the time constraints of the program. The last two listed were the ending numbers, while the first two were played before "Modern Love" but after "Mother of Violence." As I listened to "Mother of Violence" I couldn't help but feel that the back-up singer Peter had with him sounded suspiciously like Phil Collins--as it turns out, I seem to be right. Phil in fact played the drums at this gig and helps out in the vocal department on that song. And once again, though this is another feature which makes this a valuable show, Phil's unfamiliarity with the band's material probably helped to make the performance even sloppier than it would have been otherwise (that is, barring the other musician's miscues and Peter's multiple lyric mistakes). Enough of that stuff; let's talk about the bonus tracks. It's at this time that I must admit to you, reader, that this material--though it is now on CD--was transferred from a tape. The tape itself was probably recorded from a CD, because the Reading material had pauses on it (which I have since removed). The tape was 120 minutes and had a lot more material on it than I have chosen to transfer. There are several reasons why I dumped a lot of the music from the tape in the transfer process--some of it I already had elsewhere in better quality (I speak of the first side of Mike Rutherford's first solo album, Smallcreep's Day, which was placed on the tape for some reason and which I already have in full on CD); some of it (such as the Mike and the Mechanics cover of "Ain't That Peculiar") was so awful that I didn't want to listen to it more than once, let alone take the trouble to transfer it; some of it was incomplete because a lot of the bonus stuff was just filler to use up all the tape, and often the tape would run out before the song; and some of it, being official release material and as such already making me a bit leery of putting it onto disc, also just plain didn't fit on one 80 minute CD. This last bit was a few chunks of material from the Indianapolis '03 Peter Gabriel Encore Series show--interesting for two reasons: because Peter's big ball which he used for "Growing Up" got a "flat" and had to be re-inflated on stage, and because the band played a rare rendition of "San Jacinto"--the first time it was played on the tour. I now have this full show on CD. Anyways, that was a large digression. What I should really be talking about is the stuff that's actually ON this disc. What I do have are four Peter Gabriel studio tracks, two of which are remixes of his own songs and two of which are sort of collaborations he did with other groups. First is the Youssou N'Dour version of "Shakin' the Tree," which appeared on Gabriel's best-of collection in a more Gabrielized form, but sounds quite a bit different in this version, which appeared on the other singer's LP The Lion. Gabriel did a lot of work on this album and touted it highly, so that it became Youssou's "breakthrough" record and made him familiar to some western audiences. Youssou has been on tour with Peter and does some great vocalizing. This version of the song lacks the rather inane naivety of Gabriel's, and I think has a more interesting sound. The second number is an even stranger artifact (at least to me). Afro Celt Sound System are just the kind of world music band that would attract the aid and praise of Pete, and he has done some guest vocals for them on this number--a song featured on their third album (named, rather unimaginatively, "Volume Three") and also released in single form. It's a rather inspiring piece, and has some pretty good vocals, but doesn't do anything amazing. The band does not seem to have much of a "world" sound, and the song ends up sounding like a vaguely dance-tinged pop piece. I have video of Peter performing this song live with the band. The third bonus track is one of several alternate mixes of the song "Steam." I have a "Quiet" version of the song on another collection. This one appeared as a b-side on the "Steam" single and actually appeared in two different versions itself: a shorter one labeled "dub" and this one, the 12". It actually sort of reminds me of the dreaded Genesis 12" remixes from around the same time period, though I found it much more preferable to those and it made me enjoy the original even more. The first verse of lyrics has been removed and some other shifting has occurred, including the addition of Peter saying "Move it!" a few times and some other voice repeating an untranslateable phrase which adds to the "dance mix" flavor of the song. It's got a strong beat and it's hard not to be moved by the rhythm. The special mix of "In Your Eyes" rounds out the bonus tracks. When Pete plays this song live, he always bookends it with additional lyrics to the album version, which are present on this mix. However, unlike the live version, this mix removes all of the other lyrics, leaving us with only the bookends and the choruses. Also the back-up voices from the album have been placed higher in the mix, and perhaps more of them added in. This mix of "In Your Eyes" appears to have been released as a b-side on multiple singles from the So period, including "Don't Give Up," "Big Time," and "In Your Eyes" itself. The date I have put above for this number is the release date for the earliest single including the b-side, that for "Don't Give Up." For some reason this particular song was very, very low in volume and I had to increase it twice as much as the other songs, making it very hissy and still requiring the listener to increase their volume to be able to hear it well. |
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5/3/80 1-01 Intruder (5:44) 2-01 Mother of Violence (4:50) Type/Quality: Audience/Good-Very Good Comments: At the Apollo in Manchester. I thought there was going to be trouble with the audience on this one, as they are very rowdy at the beginning of the show. People are calling absurdly for "Supper's Ready," and the taper himself seems to have a duck call! However as with most shows the audience calms down after the first couple of numbers and the taper keeps his quacking to between songs. The quality is really very nice and Pete plays a very full set, including the somewhat rare "Bully For You." After the long show is a nice long interview. Peter has a nice conversation with Mark Radcliffe. They discuss his writing process and the three different producers he has employed up to that point (May 1980). There is some inevitable discussion of Genesis. This is quite a nice show. |
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7/3/80 1-01 Intruder (5:16) Type/Quality: Soundboard/Very Good-Good Comments: At Sophia Gardens in Cardiff, Wales, this is an interesting soundboard recording. It is incomplete by a few songs ("Moribund," "Games Without Frontiers," "Here Comes the Flood"--also the band introductions and some technical problems before "Family Snapshot" are missing), and the quality is hissy and probably is either too slow or too fast. Still I like my soundboards, and this one has a nice set list and some great performances. Even so, Peter claims at the beginning of the show that the band have all caught the flu and will have to soldier through, fighting off coughing fits and such (you can actually hear some coughs on the soundtrack). A "Muppet" remaster of this show is available, with all the missing bits and some cleaning up to the sound, but for now this is what I have, and it's pretty nice. |
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19/6/80 1-1 Intruder (5:56) 2-1 Moribund the Burgermeister (5:24) Type/Quality: Audience/Good-Very Good Comments: At the Greek Theater in LA, this is a very nice audience recording. It is complete and sounds great. The band do a vicious version of "Milgram's 37" which I enjoyed very much. I should mention this recording originally came to me with pauses on it, but they have been removed. There is a lot of audience yelling during "Here Comes the Flood." |
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15/9/80 1-01 Eindringling (Intruder) (intro)(1:04) 2-01 Lead a Normal Life (4:00) Type/Quality: Audience/Good-Fair Comments: At the Stadthalle in Offenbach, Germany. Apart from the fact that this show happens to feature a performance of the rare "Bully For You," it also has Peter singing all of his then-new songs with German lyrics instead of English. All the songs above with alternate German titles are those with replaced lyrics. There's a lot of chanting after the first song which interferes somewhat with the "Start" sax solo. There are some sound fluctuations during Moribund. This is a complete recording with no cuts that I heard, but the overall quality could be better. |
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24/9/80 1-01 Intruder (7:57) 2-01 Humdrum (4:17) Type/Quality: Audience/Good Comments: At the Patinoire Meriadec, Bordeaux France, this is a fairly good audience recording of a fairly complete show. There seems to be some kind of technical problem before "Solsbury Hill," and that song then cuts into the second verse. Also, though this does not seem to be common to this particular version of the show (according to Simon's track times), "Not One of Us" is abruptly cut only partway through. Otherwise, though, the show seems complete. Also at the end we have a very nice quality version of the King Biscuit broadcast from 4/10/78 (you can hear Pete introduce Robert Fripp, one of his special guest players on that tour). I have this particular material earlier on my list in more complete audio form, but this version still sounds good, especially after the somewhat muddy audience recording before. A really excellent version of "Lamb," done better than Genesis usually played it. |
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29/9/80 1-01 Intruder (5:42) 2-1 Games Without Frontiers (5:34) Type/Quality: Audience/Good-Very Good Comments: This is quite a full audience show from the Palasport in Genoa, Italy. The quality is not bad at all--a few pops--but the performance itself left me a bit disappointed. Pete's voice sounds pretty tired through the whole thing. He tells lots of intros entirely in Italian, including a long Italian explanation for "Milgram's 37" about the experiment that the song is based on. "Start" replaces what was normally the saxophone part with what sounds like a harmonica. There is a break near the beginning of "Games Without Frontiers." Pete introduces some songs like he expects there to be a big cheer afterwards, but he does not always get this effect. He shouts "I Go Swimming!!" before the song of that name, but the crowd seems rather unimpressed (as was I with this number, which I preferred in its instrumental form). Still, this is a full, fairly good quality show. It features a neat performance of "Lead a Normal Life," which gets some nice aggression added to it. |
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16 and 18/7/82 16/7/82 18/7/82 Type/Quality: Audience/Good Comments: At the Showering Pavilion at Shepton Mallet, these two discs comprise Peter Gabriel's landmark performances at his (in)famous WOMAD event. The first disc is the first night's performance, the live debut of material from his brand new fourth album, Security. This performance featured a couple of songs with the Bristol-based group of Ghana drummers called Ekome (probably the most important song Gabriel played with them was "Rhythm of the Heat," documented in part on the documentary South Bank show about the making of Pete's fourth album which is on my video page--but unfortunately that song is missing from this version of the show). The second disc documents a "mini-set" by a very special, improvisation-driven WOMAD band, composed of Peter Hammill (Gabriel's hero and friend from the golden 70s), Stewart Copeland (he of Police fame), Shankar, David Rhodes, and Larry Fast (no Tony Levin!!??). The first disc is not quite as good quality as the second one. I think it may start a bit into "San Jacinto," unless possibly Pete forgot the first line of lyric for that song (which is entirely possible). Both discs are somewhat scratchy, and the first one sounds rather far away. Pete's intros are quite short and generally hard to hear, but I think they are audible if one listens carefully. There is a small skipping error for a couple of seconds of "I Have the Touch," and as I said before, "Rhythm of the Heat" is missing. "Shosholoza" is an interesting traditional African song which Ekome help Peter on (I have the studio version here), and we also have the fairly rare "I Go Swimming." I have a couple of other versions of this from the studio--with words and without. The second disc begins with a nice, long, surprisingly good improv of the song "Dog One;" the quality is a bit shaky but still not that bad. The "mini-set" which follows has the best quality on the discs, and has some unusual and fresh performances. The first number, "Ritual Mask," is actually a Peter Hammill song which is very strange and has some embarrassingly weird vocals from Hammill. Pete introduces the band a couple of times; Shankar's big number is of course the "Indian Melody," which is pretty neat. A nice long version of "Across the River," by the band which actually originally wrote and recorded it (for the WOMAD album). There are unfortunately pauses on the tracks. Both discs have some breaks between numbers as well, where the recorder seems to have been turned off and on again. This is a neat couple of performances to have. |
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2/11/82 1-1 The Rhythm of the Heat (7:46) 2-1 Lay Your Hands on Me (8:30) Type/Quality: Audience/Good Comments: At the Stanley Theater in Utica, NY. I thought I detected a slightly scratchy undertone to the recording on my first listen, perhaps a digital distortion resulting from the remastering process (as you'll see from the show title, this is a release from the PRRP people). As usual with these kinds of things, upon listening to it again on my computer with headphones, I heard no distortion. This is a complete show with no cuts in the songs that I detected. It has the distinction of featuring a performance of "John Has a Headache," which I think is a pretty rare song. There is also a technical problem after "Solsbury" which Peter narrates for the audience; the title I supplied for this interlude is his own. |
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5/11/82 1-01 The Rhythm of the Heat (intro) (2:37) 2-1 San Jacinto (8:15) Type/Quality: Audience/Good-Very Good Comments: At the Forum in Montreal, this is a pretty good-sounding, complete show. I have little else to say! Except to mention that this features a few non-album tracks, such as "John Has a Headache," which are fairly rare. I just don't understand why the show was distributed so unevenly across the two discs. |
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3/7/83 01 Across the River (4:56) Type/Quality: Audience/Good Comments: One of several boots with the rather generic name of On the Air, this one may deserve it more than most, since the show is an "Open Air" Festival (get it? get it?!) in Werchter Belgium. According to Simon, this show is also available in radio form; this version is a fairly good audience recording. Pete has a pretty good audience here, and they participate very well at the end of "Shock the Monkey." This performance of "Milgram's 37" is almost an experiment in itself, in which Pete leads an audience chorus that must do what they're told for the song to work. A very clever idea that works rather well. Before "Solsbury Hill," there is a "fuck-up" which leads Pete into the band intros. Nice to have a show from Pete's tour for the fourth album (my personal favorite of his), and nice to have this fairly early live version of "Across the River," which features more singing from Pete than on other versions I've heard. |
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5/7/83 1-01 Soundcheck 1 (3:20) 2-1 Humdrum (4:32) Type/Quality: Audience/Good Comments: At the Stadio Communale in Ferrara, Italy. This is a very long show because it features a soundcheck from the band (including Peter) which was done in front of the audience before the show began. There is a lot of typical soundcheck messing around and people saying "One, two! One, two!" But then the band jumps into an impromptu "D.I.Y." and then an improvisational number which is described on The Movement as an early version of "Kiss That Frog"! If so it would be about ten years early, but I have to admit that on a second listen it does seem to have a resemblance to that song. The band also works on the chorus of "Not One of Us" and sections of "Fishing Net" before wrapping it up and going into the regular set. This version of the recording comes from the master tapes; even so, the quality is not as good as it could be. It is a very complete show--the recorder is turned off and on between songs sometimes but all the songs are here, and it is an especially long set as well. It's fun to hear all the male Italian fans screaming their love for Peter. |
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10/8/83 1-01 Across the River (3:55) 2-1 Solsbury Hill (take one)(2:52) Type/Quality: Soundboard/Very Good Comments: At the Paramount Theater in Seattle, Washington, this is a slightly incomplete but very nice-sounding soundboard recording. On Simon's site, this recording is labeled as being an audience and there is a comment that it is "often listed as soundboard." Frankly, the idea that anyone could call this an audience recording is absurd. There is no audience to be heard at all practically (in fact, this is very obvious in parts of the show where Peter interacts with the audience and tries to make them sing along, because you totally can't hear them), and the instruments in some cases are very obviously taken straight from the board. When I played this for the first time, I encountered an error at about 2:30 on the first track, but on a different stereo this error does not occur. Really this recording sounds fantastic, but apart from the fact that it does not document the whole show (three or four songs from the end of the set are cut off), it quickly becomes apparent why this performance was not used in an official release. The first problem occurs after the first verse of "Games Without Frontiers." Pete's microphone seems to cut out, and the band plays on until the problem is fixed and he comes back in. Peter has more trouble of this sort at the beginning of "Lay Your Hands on Me." Perhaps ruffled by this (though technical problems should be no stranger to Peter!), he is totally unable to get through "Solsbury Hill." He cannot remember the words. He jokes to the audience that it's a good thing tonight's gig is a "rehearsal," and says that the way he usually gets the words to the song is by reading the lips of the people in the front row. Meanwhile, a roadie hunts up a sheet of paper with the lyrics on it, and they do the song over. An interesting moment in Pete's career... |
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12/8/83 1-1 Across the River (4:05) 2-1 Games Without Frontiers (7:30) Type/Quality: Audience/Good Comments: At the Civic Theater or at the Greek Theater, depending on whether you consult Alan Hewitt's guide or Simon Funnell's, this is the first of two nights in Berkeley. At least, I'm pretty sure it is. I was given the 12 August date by the person who gave me this show, and having looked through Simon's track lists for this tour, that date appears to be the only one on which this particular combination of songs was played (not long after this gig, Peter replaced "Across the River" with "Rhythm of the Heat" as the opening song, and not all shows before this date have the "Flood" as the final number, and most have "I Don't Remember" instead of "I Go Swimming"), so I think it's pretty safe to assume this is the 12 August gig. The only problem is that my track times don't match Simon's for this one, plus my "San Jacinto" has a big cut in the middle and his appears to be intact. So I don't think I have the best possible version of this. However, let's work with what we have, shall we? It's actually not that bad quality. It's a little crackly, but the main problem is that it appears to be too slow. I don't notice it in the instrumental portions, but Pete's voice just sounds too deep and froggy for this to be the correct speed. There's a band "fuck-up" (probably Tony Levin's fault) at the end of "Family Snapshot" which gets a humorous comment from Peter. There is a long break in the recording after that song, and "Intruder" fades in at the beginning. As mentioned before, "San Jacinto" has a massive cut which removes the middle of the song. Peter waits until the very end of the show to introduce the band--this seems to have been habit with him, and not a mistake. Anyways, as I said, probably not the best version of this show, but it's not bad. |
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12/9/83 1-01 The Rhythm of the Heat (4:56) 2-1 Solsbury Hill (5:33) Type/Quality: Audience/Good-Very Good Comments: At the Apollo Theatre in Glasgow, Scotland, this is a "MUPPET" remaster of a nice full audience show from the tour for what is my personal favorite Peter Gabriel album. This is a nice rich set list with lots of juicy encores. The sound is generally pretty clear, but I think it leaves a bit to be desired, because I found it very difficult to hear what Pete was saying for a lot of his stories. His voice just gets a lot lower when there's no music behind it, and he was hard to make out. The story for "Shock the Monkey" seems to be about Pete trying to grow chest hair; the story for "San Jacinto" is perfectly audible because he tells it over top of the opening part of that song, and thus his voice is stronger. Pete's voice sounds pretty tired to me; perhaps he'd been singing pretty hard for the past few weeks. The band has to restart "Flood" partway in because of a mistake which I guess is made by Peter: "It's a good thing I don't have to make a living at this." Curiously Pete waits until the very end of the show to introduce the band (now that I've heard a few more from this period, it seems that this is how he usually did it), and the last encore is "Kiss of Life," which is a very rousing version, even though they don't seem to get themselves quite in synch. There are no cuts that I could discern, so this is a pretty good show. |
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Oslo '83 29/9/83 1-01 Rhythm of the Heat (4:22) 2-1 Solsbury Hill (5:24) Type/Quality: Audience/Good Comments: At the Ekeberghallen in Oslo, Norway. (Please note I have this available in lossless compression files.) This is a somewhat shabbily-recorded show which nevertheless features what is for me a dream set list from Pete. My two favorite albums of his are his third and fourth, and this set draws heavily from those, in addition to featuring a few greats from his first and what I consider to be the only really good songs from his second ("DIY" and "On the Air"). The problem is that, while there are no appreciable cuts, the recording individual seems to get nervous from time to time, causing the sound to fade out or some very strange static and scraping noises to cover over the music. Once I think there is some blowing. It doesn't happen particularly often. The sound I was not blown away by, though Simon's entry for the show that matches these track times is rated A-. As quite often seems to happen for me when I listen to a Gabriel show, the band sounds a bit sloppy. But perhaps I'm being overly critical, and I did enjoy hearing all the great songs they chose to play. At the end of the second disc we get a short interview with Pete back stage in Norway, I presume before this very gig. Interestingly the interviewer mentions that when Pete was there with Genesis, it was the (in)famous show in which too much flash powder was used during the climactic explosion in "It." So now we know where that happened! (Incidentally, an open-air microphone recording of this show is available.) |
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27/11/86 1-1 Intro (0:55) 2-1 Band Introductions (3:13) Type/Quality: Audience/Good-Very Good Comments: At the Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto, this is the second of two nights at this venue. Interestingly enough, Alan Hewitt's Gabriel guide denies the existence of this gig, putting only one gig at the Maple Leaf Gardens and that on 23/11. But I will follow Simon's lead and keep the date and title given for this boot. This is definitely in Toronto, because before "Flood" Peter mentions the song was recorded "in this city," and his first album was indeed recorded in Toronto (I checked!). Peter also says something that makes it clear this is the second night in a row here. It's not a bad quality one, though there is some audience talking. Peter declares that Peter Gabriel wigs are available to buy after "Shock the Monkey" (I guess maybe he wears a wig for that song??). The recording is slightly messed up at the beginning of "Not One of Us," but it recovers quickly. There are loud bumps in "Mercy Street," but they appear to be coming from the stage. The opening of "Sledgehammer" is clipped, and there are some breaks later in the song. A huge chunk is missing from "In Your Eyes," starting from somewhere near the beginning and going all the way to the choruses near the end. This is the only major problem with the show, though. |
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1-01 Introduction (2:18) 2-1 Big Time (6:57) Type/Quality: Audience/Good Comments: At the LA Forum, this is the last US show of Pete's So tour--at least, the last one he did in 1986. This tour seemed to go on forever. The set list for this tour was really great: it featured a lot of songs from his third and fourth albums, which I definitely consider to be his best. They are also performed in versions which significantly depart from the studio recordings. Particularly catchy is "No Self Control," which I found running through my head after the first listen. "Lay Your Hands on Me" is particularly long at the end refrain of the title, because Pete was busy being carried along on his back by the crowd (this was apparently something he did quite often on this tour--brave man). This is a very full concert. This came from 2nd gen tapes, and was remastered by the Coaster Factory. I did a little of the editing and re-tracking on my own computer, though the main job as always with CF was done by David Kempler. I decided that it was better not to remove much, so the applause at the end in particular goes on for quite a while. The artwork, seen above, is made by me (to download hi-res files, please visit the Movement). This is a fairly good recording--a bit far away, but clear and quite audible. All you have to endure is the incessant chattering of a nearby female fan--she's not as loud as she could have been. I find some of Pete's set choices interesting--"This is the Picture," for instance, which for me is easily one of the most pointless songs on the album from which it comes, and "The Family and the Fishing Net," which while compelling and beautiful, does not seem destined to be an audience favorite. I love hearing "Here Comes the Flood," which is probably one of the most beautiful songs he's ever written, and for me never fails to surpass the album version when played live. 23/6/87 1-1 San Jacinto (8:47) 2-1 Big Time (6:17) Type/Quality: Audience/Good Comments: At the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre in Glasgow, Pete's visit to this city came just days before Genesis arrived there on their gigantic IT tour. Although it comes over six months after the Goodbye USA performance, this show's set list is nearly identical, the only difference being that "Games Without Frontiers" is played instead of "I Have the Touch." Pete's intros are very similar, and so is the quality. This show originally had pauses between tracks, which have been removed. This is a rather rare recording, I think. I have no certainty that this date is correct, as Pete never says anything about Glasgow, but I think I can trust it. I've been told my copy came from a 2nd gen source. The recording is complete except for "Family and the Fishing Net," which is only about half there. The show has been recorded at too high a volume, so when you listen to it chances are you'll hear a lot of crackles. I found that on different stereos it was crackly to different degrees, and that lowering my treble helped. The second disc seemed worse than the first. Aside from that problem the sound is fairly good. 21/7/87 1-1 San Jacinto (8:48) 2-1 Big Time (7:33) Type/Quality: Soundboard/Very Good Comments: At the Spectrum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, this is a nice soundboard show. Actually, that's about all I have to say for it: this seems to be a complete show but for the fact that "Biko" cuts off before the end. However, the song itself is basically over, Peter has just said "the rest is up to you," and probably the remainder of the song is just the audience singing until their accompaniment disappears. "Family and the Fishing Net" and "Family Snapshot" are both missing, but have been replaced by "Not One of Us" and "Intruder" because this is the second night in a row at the Spectrum and Peter wanted to give people coming to both shows some different songs. Originally, the beginning of the second track on both discs had an incredibly loud buzz on it; I have removed the buzzes, and there doesn't seem to be anything else wrong with this show. 5-9/10/87 01 San Jacinto (6:46) Type/Quality: Soundboard/Very Good-Excellent Comments: At Lycavitos (or Lykabettos Hill Theatre? or Lycabettus!) in Athens, Greece, the artwork on this one incorrectly places it in the US. Interestingly enough, while Hewitt puts the last gigs of this tour at this venue, he has the tour ending on the 9th of October. Bootleggers think they know something he doesn't, however, as they seem to unanimously date it at the 15th. From all info I've seen, this date must be incorrect--it is probably from the range I put above. This is a soundboard boot of such good quality that it almost makes up for its incompleteness. It sounds basically exactly like an officially released live album. This is probably because it comes from an officially released video (which is probably no longer in print), called POV (Point of View), which was shot over the range of these last gigs in Greece (and possibly a few earlier gigs). Simply more from the So tour, though since it is late in the tour (almost definitely the very last shows of the tour in fact, as I implied earlier) one can assume that the songs sound more polished and professional than they would have the previous year. There's not much to be said about a boot like this--it's great quality, and all the songs that are on it are complete and sound excellent. (See below for more of the same material.) 5-9/10/87 01 This is the Picture (Excellent Birds) (3:10) Type/Quality: Soundboard and Video/Very Good-Excellent Comments: At Lycavitos (or Lykabettos Hill Theatre? or Lycabettus!) in Athens, Greece, this is merely a rearranging of the previous disc with two new songs added in. Having recently become more familiar with the soundtrack of the movie from which all of this material probably comes, POV, I was able to correctly rearrange the tracks so that they reflect the ordering of said film. Oddly, this did not suit some of the songs as well as one might have imagined. For one thing, there is a slight speed difference between the two new tracks (which definitely came from the soundtrack of the movie and which I transferred from a cassette tape) and the ones taken from Mercy Street. I wouldn't have noticed this, only "This is the Picture" was clearly supposed to be crossfading into "San Jacinto." I kept the transition on here, but there is a sickly second or so when the different keys of the two recordings meet. Also, strangely enough, "No Self Control" started off with another such transition, but not from the end of "Games Without Frontiers." In fact I have still not satisfactorily been able to figure out what song was on the beginning of "No Self Control." Regardless, it has been basically removed from this version--the previous song fades out and NSC fades in, making a smooth transition. The other tracks play quite smoothly. I love the way Pete did "No Self Control" on this tour--whenever I listen to this version I get it stuck in my head. I have a feeling that some of these songs have been edited--"Lay Your Hands," for instance, usually ended in a very long repetition of the chorus as Pete was carried around on the arms of the audience. "Biko" probably has a similar edit. "Mercy Street" may originally have been longer as well. "This is the Picture" has been severely edited--it was probably only on the video so that the show began with Pete's band introductions, because there is very little of the actual song on here. Still a very nice recording, augmented by the additional songs. 14/10/88 1 Sledgehammer - Peter Gabriel (5:01) Type/Quality: Radio/Very Good Comments: At the Estadio Mundialista, Mendoza Argentina, this is a radio broadcast of one of Peter's "Human Rights Now!" tour shows. Peter would do a few odd gigs seemingly related to this tour in '89-'91, but this gig and the next day's gig in Buenos Aires were pretty much the finale performances. There are unfortunately some split second pauses on here. Peter was not the only artist involved here, and in fact only the first three songs here are really Peter's. The next four feature mainly Sting. According to track lists I have seen, Peter is on "Ellas Danzan Solas," but I don't remember hearing him. Springsteen, who seems somewhat out of place, adds a few vocals to "Every Breath," and everybody helps on the last song, including Youssou N'Dour and Tracy Chapman (I think). Peter tells the intros for his songs in English and Spanish, one after the other. Sting focuses more entirely on Spanish--"Ellas Danzan Solas" has a large amount of Spanish lyrics. Interesting if only to hear Bruce sing part of "Every Breath You Take." |
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24/4/93 1-1 Come Talk to Me (6:18) 2-1 Kiss That Frog (5:42) Type/Quality: Audience/Very Good-Good Comments: At Le Zenith in Paris France. An alternate title for this show would be Live From a Secret World--or Union (see next entry!). This is really a fantastic audience recording--in fact, I actually found it a bit hard to believe that this wasn't a soundboard, the audience sounds so distant on it. Really good quality, and a great show--it has a few pops, but other than that there are no real problems. As I believe people expect from Pete, the live versions of his songs vary noticeably from the studio versions. "Steam," for instance, features a quiet opening section, and "In Your Eyes" has been bookended by an additional passage that is quite nice (anyone who has heard this song live before will already be quite familiar with this, as he plays the song live like that consistently). Featured also on this recording are two non-album tracks: "Across the River" and "Love Town." "Across the River" was a b-side to the "I Have the Touch" single of December 1982--as well as a couple versions of the much later "Big Time" single of March 1987--and "Kiss That Frog" (September 1993). "Lovetown" was an a-side single in several forms in 1994, but is probably mainly known for its inclusion on the soundtrack to the movie Philadelphia (January 1994--or may have been released 1993?). At the time of this concert it is quite possible that it had not been released in any form. I have both of these songs in studio form and "Across the River" live versions from as far back as 1982. Interesting to note that Pete chose to open his set with the album's opening track, and basically end the set with the album's last track--rarely does an artist carry the ordering of the album into the set in such a way (one similar situation I can think of is the set for Genesis' ATOTT tour, which began with the album's first track and ended with the last one--not counting the encore, of course). This is an interesting companion to the official Secret World Live album, which has a slightly different track listing and features two more from So. 24/4/93 1-1 Come Talk to Me (6:00) 2-01 Kiss That Frog (5:47) Type/Quality: Audience/Very Good-Good Comments: At Le Zenith in Paris France. I was sent this show as a bonus by a kind trader, only to find upon a little research that it is from the same gig as the above entry--in fact, considering the very similar track times, it is most likely the same recording (though I have not done a comparison)! This version features bonus tracks from a Saturday Night Live performance, with very good sound. The date used for that comes from the Movement. It's funny how different a recording can sound when listened to at different times. My review of the previous entry was quite effusive as to quality, but when I listened to this version (which is almost definitely identical), I was not wowed by the sound. It is quite clear, but it also sounds far away and there is occasional chatter from the audience. Still, apart from the fact that the very beginning of the first song fades in, this is a totally complete recording, and I don't feel quite able to alter the quality rating. 10/8/94 1-1 Zaar/Come Talk to Me (10:15) 2-1 Washing of the Water (4:21) Type/Quality: Audience/Good Comments: (I have this show in a lossless compression format in addition to audio CD.) At Stabler Arena in Lehigh University, Bethlehem Pennsylvania, this is one of the last few of a series of gigs in 1994 leading up to Pete's appearance at Woodstock '94. The recording is not terrible and there are no real cuts, but I thought Pete's band were not very much on form. As they approached the Woodstock concert the band were working on some different songs that hadn't been played in a while, causing some screw-ups. The most memorable is in "Don't Give Up," when Paula Cole forgets the words and Peter actually stops the song. He says that they have performed many times together and Paula has never messed up until now, so it's a "special occasion." The audience gives her a big hand. He then mentions the many, many times he has screwed up. He proceeds to do so again during "Kiss That Frog" and "Washing of the Water," not getting the words quite right. I felt like at times the band simply was not making enough noise--it was as though an instrument is not in the mix or something. It's odd. Still, not a bad recording. 14/8/94 1 Sledgehammer (5:27) Type/Quality: Video or Soundboard/Very Good Comments: At Saugherties New York, this CD has just the ending portion of Peter's performance at the 1994 Woodstock concert. In reality he did quite a few more numbers than this, but I was given a CD with just these tracks on it, so there you are. The quality is very nice and this has clearly been lifted from an official source. I am very unfamiliar with this concert so I don't know where this could have come from. It sounds like it has been edited somewhere along the line. Strangely, the editing seems to have been done to make it longer: the ending portion of "Biko," where Peter is telling the audience to sing it for all prisoners of conscience and so on, is repeated. I don't think he would have done this himself. Anyway, it's a very good performance and the band sounds great. |
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29/7/01 01 Here Comes the Flood (5:43) Type/Quality: Audience/Good-Very Good Comments: At the WOMAD festival held in Marymoor Park, Redmond Washington (or Seattle according to the CD), this is one of Peter's "between album" gigs. It doesn't really rightly fall into the Secret World or Growing Up tours, but to me it really seems like a warm-up for the Growing Up shows--the lineup is very similar (including Peter's daughter Melanie) and the set list is similar--though of course it is missing the songs from the new album, except "Signal to Noise." Peter claims on the recording that this set list was chosen by votes on his web site. One might think with this kind of one-off show that the band might be rusty and it would be a rather lackluster performance; but actually, this is a great little show, and the quality isn't bad at all. Peter's gig really ends at track 10, and the last track is from later in the festival when Afro Celt Sound System were on stage. They bring Peter back on because Peter helped them with the recording of "When You're Falling" (I have the studio version of this song as a bonus track on the Reading '79 show, above) and helped support the band. Unfortunately, Peter doesn't really help the band too much on this performance, because he can't seem to remember the words of the song! But it's an interesting rare track and this is a nice disc. 2002 01 Darkness (6:51) Type/Quality: Studio/Excellent Comments: This is an interesting little artifact; a promotional prototype version of Pete's album Up, complete with a bonus track and alternate mixes of some (or all?) of the songs. This was a version of the album released only to record company executives. You'll see that the track list has been slightly changed in order to accomodate the extra track. I don't like "The Drop" not being the last song, but I can see why it was moved--it helps maintain the rhythm of the album. "Burn You Up, Burn You Down" is a rather bouncy song and putting it and "Barry Williams" right together would have been a bit much. The bonus is the only song not written entirely by Pete, and it was also recorded long before the release of Up; in fact, as long ago as the early nineties. You can kind of tell; it has quite a different sound than the rest of the album, and I think it makes sense not to have kept it on there. Still, it's nice to have. The mixes of the other songs are basically the same as the final versions, but with some slight differences. Actually in some cases I think they might be better. 2002 Jools Holland TV Show, November 2002 Richard Allinson Radio Show, recorded 13/9/02, broadcast
12/10/02 Bonus Tracks Type/Quality: TV, Radio, Studio/Very Good Comments: This is an enjoyable collection of promotional shows for the Growing Up tour, along with some fairly contemporary non-album tracks. The first bit comes from a television show--we only really have Pete's section, though apparently there were other acts. The interesting thing is that during the interview portion, the host subjects Peter to a clip of himself singing "Supper's Ready" in 1973. Peter mentions the cover band The Musical Box. He also mentions the "hamster cage" he will be using on tour for "Growing Up." They talk about the frequency of his album releases. The thing I noticed about these performances is that Peter's voice sounds absolutely fantastic! Having listened to his tour shows from after this, I assumed Peter was just getting old and his voice was hoarse. But actually it is just the stress of performing every night which makes him sound tired--coming fresh from not having been on a real tour in quite a few years, Peter sounds really great here. "In Your Eyes" is what Peter calls a "truncated" version, without the extra bits on the beginning and the end. The second bit has some very nice interviews. Usually I think the guys who interview musicians ask stupid questions, but this guy really seems to be on Peter's wavelength, and Peter picks up the hints he makes and provides some interesting responses that deal with important issues. Well, not all important: they spend a while at the beginning describing Peter's studio space and the swans which seem to congregate outside. Peter tells Richard Allinson how radio stations should be run, and also talks about the process for writing the song "This is the Picture," complete with an anecdote which ends with him asleep in the studio. It's a nice chat, and in between questions we are treated to some numbers played live in Peter's studio to a small team of press representatives. They're some nice performances which are among the first which can be considered part of the "tour" for Up. Finally, at the end are the bonus tracks. I had heard nothing about the song "Nocturnals" before getting this disc, but apparently it was one of his self-proclaimed hundreds of ideas that were floating around during the recording of Up. Also included is his cover of "Book of Love" (apparently originally done by a band called Magnetic Fields) which was included on the soundtrack for the movie Shall We Dance. Finally, just to show how many media Peter can stick himself on, there's the version of his song "Curtains" (an '87 b-side--see my Non Album, above) which was featured on the video game Myst IV. There are a few breaks towards the end of this song. A nice little compilation. Except for the fact that there are nasty pauses between the tracks. The most noticeable ones come between the interviews and songs on the Richard Allinson bit, because they are supposed to segue smoothly between each other, but instead sound very jerky on the transitions. Oh well... 21/9/02 1-1 Darkness (7:39) 2-1 More Than This (6:12) Type/Quality: Audience/Very Good-Good Comments: At Theatre De La Mutualite, Paris. One date I saw put this in August, but I'm certain that is incorrect--from what I can tell, the Growing Up tour had not even begun at that date. I'd like to stress the high quality of this recording: it's audience, but it's a very good audience. I was under the impression for a long time that it was a radio show. However the audience does intrude from time to time to remind you. Multiple versions of this show exist, and I'm not sure I came across one whose track times exactly matched mine--however I'm sure of the date (as sure as I can be). Pete seems to have messed with his set a lot on this tour, and when I saw him nearly two months after this gig, he was not playing "No Way Out" or "My Head Sounds Like That," but he was playing more of his older songs and had added "Sky Blue" and "Signal to Noise." Also when I saw him the opening number had changed to "Here Comes the Flood." Naturally these variations are just the kind of things that make bootleggers go crazy. Anyway, this particular example of the Growing Up tour is a good one. 24/10/02 01 Introduction (1:11) Type/Quality: Radio/Very Good-Excellent Comments: At Maison De La Radio, Studio 104, Paris. This is one of those great shows that I--mercifully--have very little to comment on, because it's all there and it's all good. This is clearly a shortened set, as you can tell by the fact that it's on only one disc--in actuality the set was quite a bit longer, including the following numbers: "No Way Out," "Downside Up," "Digging in the Dirt," "The Tower That Ate People," "Animal Nation," and "Father, Son" (all this is according to Simon's page of set lists for this tour). The radio broadcast severely edited the set. This is definitely French, as quite frequently a French radio announcer will interject lots and lots of words, all of which go flying over my head. Peter of course is much better at the language than I am, and uses quite a bit of it himself. However he still sings the songs in English ;). The quality is really great--nothing bad to say about it. The only thing that is not quite perfect about this disc is that the track breaks are all just a little off--quite often tracks will begin a bit into the song, and sometimes the track will move on before the song is over. This makes it seem as if the disc were tracked "on the fly," so to speak, which is possible (in fact, Halley, a fellow boot collector, who has this identical disc, explains that the show was "streamed to hard drive"--so, there you are). Beyond that, a pretty perfect disc. Interesting to note that "In Your Eyes" features the vocal skills of the famous Youssou N'dour--I believe he comes in too early for one section, prompting an amusing reaction from Pete and the audience. 17/11/02 1-1 Here Comes the Flood (4:33) 2-01 Digging in the Dirt (6:28) Type/Quality: Audience/Good-Very Good Comments: At the Continental Airlines Arena in East Rutherford, New Jersey, this concert has special significance for me, since I was at it. It was in fact the first concert by a member of Genesis that I had ever been to. After a lot of waiting and cajolery and whining, I finally have a copy of this show, and it sounds great. In fact, it sounds much better than it did when I was there listening to the real thing, because I had very cheap seats and the arena was only half full, so the reverb drowned out any details in the sound. This recording must have been made at a much closer seat to Pete than mine, as there is next to none of the reverb problem, and the sound is quite clear. It sounds excellent--a few pops perhaps. This is the whole show, minus a few words in between some of the numbers. Very glad to have this one. This is in fact the same "remastered" version that Simon Funnell has on his list. A few comments on the show: I think it's fantastic the way Pete begins this show (and many of the others of this tour) with "Here Comes the Flood," a song from his very first album which remains nonetheless one of the best songs he has ever written, and sounds utterly beautiful when played with just him on a keyboard (as it was this night). He then brings the set full circle with the stripped down "Father, Son," which is also quite beautiful. The stage show for this tour was great, using elevating platforms, a circular turntable of a stage, a huge rig above the players which could come down at will, video projection onto cloth shapes, a bouncy ball which Pete actually climbed into and jumped around the stage in (comparing himself to a former pet hamster of his daughter's afterwards, and calling it proof that there is karma), a suit jacket of light bulbs worn during "Sledgehammer," and plenty of other great stuff. Pete also makes a humorous mention to the road crew, whom he calls "orange men" because their uniform is an orange jumpsuit (one particular orange man was required to keep Pete's wiring clear of the other players and from Pete himself as he energetically jumped around the stage with his light bulb suit jacket during "Sledgehammer"). Pete I think was trying very hard to convince everyone that he's not as old as he looks: he spent a good deal of the show running around, bouncing, pointing video cameras at himself, twirling, riding bikes, and singing his guts out. It was actually the show just after this one in Philadelphia that Pete and his daughter first tried out an acrobatic set-up for "Downside Up" which had them walking upside down on the circular platform used as part of the stage. 19/11/02 1-01 Here Comes the Flood (5:52) 2-1 Growing Up (9:19) Type/Quality: Audience/Fair-Poor Comments: At Gund Arena in Cleveland, Ohio. This is a complete show, which was played two days after I saw him and features a nearly identical set list (the only difference being the second encore, which has been changed from "Family Snapshot" to "Come Talk to Me"). The audience is not very chatty and there are no cuts. There are no pauses, no gaps, and no pops. Unfortunately, the sound remains quite bad. It's very muddy, not much clarity or depth, and of course there's a bit of reverb in the mix. Pete is hard to make out on the intros. This was given to me by the recorder himself, so the problem is not that this copy is from a multi-generation source--I suppose the tape recorder or whatever was used to pick up the sound just didn't pick it up very well. The recording starts with the canned music which was played in between acts, which is actually from the album Ovo. The Blind Boys of Alabama join in on "Sky Blue," and Pete's other opening act gets in on "Animal Nation" and I believe "In Your Eyes." If you want this particular show or are a completist, here it is. |
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1-01 Red Rain (6:55) 2-1 Shock the Monkey (7:08) Type/Quality: Audience/Good-Very Good Comments: NOTE! This show has now become available through themusic.com's Encore Series offer. Hence it should probably not be traded. Anyway, the soundboard version will probably sound better than this. However, since I went ahead and wrote comments for this boot before it was being sold officially, I will keep them here. At the Smirnoff Music Centre in Dallas, Texas, this show (a Coaster Factory remaster of a Texas Knight recording) comes early in the second US leg of the Growing Up tour. Pete decided to change his stage show rather drastically, most likely in order to fit into a wider range of venues, and he also rearranged his set quite a bit. Some older numbers have crept in, some newer numbers have been dropped, and the ordering is switched around a bit. This is a fairly good recording--it sounds a bit distant, and I had some trouble even with my volume cranked making out some of the things Pete says between songs--but generally it's quite clear and the audience is pushed back in the mix. There are no cuts. Unfortunately it is not a flawless performance (but really, what performance is flawless?); early in the show there is some kind of technical problem which makes it necessary to restart "Games Without Frontiers" not once but twice! Peter describes it as a "fuck-up," sounding rather annoyed. There are also several instances of lyrics being forgotten, and Melanie messes up her singing a bit near the end of "Don't Give Up." Even though they no longer had the up and down "Heaven" stage of previous gigs, there were still good visuals in this show, and Pete still managed to dress up in interesting gear. He was also still able to fit his big bouncy ball on the stage for "Growing Up," and talks about hamster balls and karma afterwards. The band introductions are comfortably long. Pete seems to almost mumble some of his intros, but a careful ear can probably make out all of them. Before "Signal to Noise" Pete provides a politically tinged intro about the past power of the British Empire compared to the present power of the United States. His message of peace and criticism of the US government seems to be his regular story for this song on this leg of the tour, as he said a very similar thing (though with a bit more grace) when I saw him later in this month. The opening act, Sevara, returns for "In Your Eyes." There is a rather long wait between the first and second encores--probably because they had to set up the telephone box for "Come Talk to Me." There's another wait after that song. Before "Mercy Street" he mentions that a storm is supposed to be coming, and during the final number you can actually hear loud thunder cracks in the background--an interesting addition to the music and something I've never heard in an audience recording before. |
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The Growing Up tour began in earnest in November of 2002, with the first US leg. When the second US leg of the tour began in June of 2003, theMusic.com started offering soundboard recordings of every night of the tour, as part of what was called the "Encore Series." This made audience recordings of any Gabriel Growing Up shows after 7 June '03 redundant, but it also raised the quandary of whether it is okay to trade Encore releases. Technically it is illegal to do so, since Encore shows are officially released material that can be purchased. However, for the sake of being complete and of having my collection fully listed here, below is a quick, short list of the Encore shows I have acquired. 21 June 2003 22 June 2003 2 July 2003 5 June 2004 |
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For Peter's "Warm-Up Tour" in the summer of 2007, he once again joined with theMusic.com and offered soundboard recordings of his gigs. Again, these are official releases and technically not fair to trade, but I nevertheless have chosen to detail the one(s) I acquired. Gelsenkirchen '07 (first night) 14/6/07 1-01 The Rhythm of the Heat (4:51) 2-1 Not One of Us (5:39) Type/Quality: Soundboard/Excellent-Very Good Comments: At the Amphitheater in Gelsenkirchen Germany. For the other Encore Series entries I did not list tracks, but Peter's set for this "Warm-Up Tour" is so interesting that I felt I had to detail it. Apparently his set list for this small bunch of European gigs was compiled by votes submitted to his web site, and it shows: these are almost all classic numbers from his older albums, with only a single song from the most recent Up album. Some of these had not been played live since the '80s, when Peter's band was composed of almost entirely different people. Needless to say, it was very interesting and exciting to hear these songs performed. "On the Air" and "DIY" are the two good songs from Pete's second album, IMO, and it was great to hear "Moribund the Burgermeister," which I thought sounded better than when he used to play it in 1977. Peter sings "Family Snapshot" in the German language version, and sometimes sings a German chorus for "Not One of Us." Peter's daughter Melanie does lead vocals for "Mother of Violence," an interesting choice. I'm not sure her vocal range is quite suited for it, and they seem to have to put her higher in the mix after the first couple of lines, but she doesn't do too badly. "I Grieve" is an interesting choice for the track from Up; not one he performed a lot in previous tours, but a good song and well-performed here. I thought "Blood of Eden" was a nice choice, and it was great to hear "Milgram's 37," which had a really great live sound when he played it in 1980--this band manages to re-capture some of that, though the menace and manic energy of the original are missing. Another welcome old friend is "Intruder," complete with the creepy, creaking, spidery sound and eerie whistling at the end. I could talk about every song, but this review might start getting long! I think that some of the set arranging was a conscious attempt to get away from some of the older songs Peter had been playing on the past few tours. Some songs that are conspicuous by their absence: "Games Without Frontiers," "Biko," "San Jacinto," "Shock the Monkey," "Secret World." "Biko" and "Secret World" would enter his sets later in the summer, but the one I really missed was "San Jacinto." This particular gig is the first from Peter's 2007 touring, and it really, really shows. The band line-up is almost the same as from his Growing Up tours, except that the keyboardist Rachel Z has been replaced by Angie Pollock. However they could have used a few more weeks of rehearsal on this unusual set of songs, because errors abound. Peter has a sadistic way of pointing these out to anyone in the audience who may have missed them--he gets to "fuck-up number three," but to be frank I think they get up to at least six or seven before the show is over. Even at the beginning of the first song, "Rhythm of the Heat," Pete's voice is off. It was a gutsy song to begin with, because it requires a guttural yowl from Peter right off the bat, and he really doesn't hit it. The first official "fuck-up" occurs in "Intruder." I thought that "On the Air" sounded like it had been purposely slowed down--in fact I thought I heard Ged Lynch consciously restraining himself in the opening beats. "No Self Control," a great song that I was looking forward to, is somewhat marred by memory lapses. Peter comes in late and uncertain for the beginning of the main lyrics for "Big Time," and then screws up quite badly on "Steam." He seems to sort of wander all over the place lyrically, with the band trying hard to pick up the pieces--the song limps along for six minutes before mercifully coming to an end. Thankfully the show-closer, "Lay Your Hands on Me," is light on lyrics, and the encores are more heavily-played live numbers. Peter would shuffle his set somewhat as the summer went on and not all of these songs were played at every gig. This is a very interesting show to have, fuck-ups and all. Peter's intros are almost entirely in German. The sound quality is quite nice, because unlike the Genesis Encore shows from the same year, this recording is actually from the soundboard. |
